The NRL chooses to continue with the cap, believing that any reduction in quality of the sporting product due to the loss of these players is less than allowing richer clubs to dominate.
In 2008, the departure of Mark Gasnier and Sonny Bill Williams, two elite stars, to play French rugby union prompted calls for the cap to be raised.
Some of the blame has been apportioned to the fact that the media company News Limited was a 50% owner of the NRL, and would normally be expected to be a bidder for rugby league rights in Australia.
[8] Following the 2009–10 northern rugby union season, global exchange rate changes meant that payments in European currencies were not as attractive, and Gasnier returned to the NRL.
The new Australian Rugby League Commission secured a billion dollar television rights deal in August 2012, and both clubs and players expected a significant increase in the salary cap.
In 2002, the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs were fined the maximum of $500,000 and deducted all 37 premiership points received during the season after it was found that they had committed serious and systematic breaches of the salary cap totaling $2.13 million over the past three years, including $750,000 in 2001 and $920,000 in 2002; these were described by NRL Chief Executive David Gallop as "exceptional in both its size and its deliberate and ongoing nature".
In 2005, the New Zealand Warriors were fined $430,000 and were ordered to start the 2006 season with a four premiership point deficit and cut their payroll by $450,000 after club officials revealed that their former management had exceeded the salary cap by $1.1 million over the last two years.
[22] In 2018, Manly were fined $750,000 and two of the club's officials received 12 month bans after the NRL found that they had breached the salary cap over the previous five seasons.
It was reported that Cronulla were in breach of 3rd party payment rules between 2013 and 2017 but following an investigation by the NRLs Auditor the club's 2016 premiership victory was declared by the NRL as compliant.